Hufflepuff: Blue roses and Golden secrets
by sierrafoxtrot
Summary: Wayne Hopkins is hung up on Cho Chang, Justin Finch-Fletchley watches Hannah Abbot, and Ernie Macmillan isn't a great one for romance. Rated for language. Written for the Four Houses competition on HPFC. Reviews are love :P


_**A/N: Written for the Four Houses Competition on HPFC. My character was Ernie Macmillan and my prompts were blue roses and golden secrets. **_

~~x~~

**Blue roses and Golden secrets**

Ernie Macmillan isn't a great one for romance. There seems to be too much to do, for one thing; the pressure from his parents to get good grades, not to mention the pressure from himself to be the best, the very best.

For another thing; he watches his friends go through it all, and to Ernie, girls really don't seem to be worth all the pain.

Wayne Hopkins is hung up on Cho Chang.

He pines away, watches her from afar. A different house, different year; she is the definition of unattainable beauty. A rose of blue ties and black hair, Ernie remembers him saying drunkenly one night, to general laughter in the dormitory.

She almost seems to float through life for the first five years, neatly fitting into the stereotype with minimum fuss. Until the end of her fifth year, when she is brought swiftly into the eyes of the general public by a flash of green light and the fading life in a handsome face.

Ernie pities Cho, truly, he does, but Wayne seems to suffer alongside her ("Shall I talk to her? Oh, God, she's crying…"). The dorm is filled with complaints about her various boyfriends, although the name that seems to resonate the most is Michael fucking Corner ("What is with that? I mean, that bastard!"). Her relationship with Potter seems to pass Wayne by.

Ernie watches as, through seventh year, Wayne grows paler with worry for her, checks the obituaries daily (although, of course, they all do). The familiar names jar them all; Cormac McLaggen, Amos Diggory, Roger Davies, but no Cho Chang.

He never gets her. They watch as she falls, like a devastated black swan, lilac robes flapping in the wind like wings and hair like a river of ebony as she disappears into the cloud of dust at the bottom of the Ravenclaw tower, her flight of freedom to be her last.

The pain can't be worth it?

Justin Finch-Fletchley has a similar secret; one that skips around with golden pigtails and an even more golden personality. They are friends, but sometimes, when he says her name or the way he studies the fire flickering on her cheekbones in the common room, Ernie notices the look in his blue eyes. Hannah Abbot is unattainable in a different way to Cho Chang- _how could he ruin that friendship? How could he do that?_ He asks, and there is no answer. He leaves it alone in the hope that it (_**what?**_) will die

1997-98 changes them all. Justin is not allowed back to Hogwarts- muggleborn and proud, he goes to Eton at last. He follows the newspapers- wizarding and not alike- sees the deaths, the disappearances, the traitors outlined in black and white. He wonders what has become of his old friends; he never forgets them in all the long nights that lead up to the 2nd of May.

Finally, Justin decides that enough is enough; he'll tell her, he resolves, when they meet up in the summer.

But by then, when they have got through the fight relatively unscathed, the Hufflepuffs, he is too late. Because she is on the arm of a war hero, and there's no way he can compete with that.

For the next few months (like the past few years) Ernie stays away from it all. Or, at least, he tries to.

He becomes Head Boy in the school year of 98-99, and he wanders the corridors at night, trying to force himself to forget (-_and there they chained Michael Corner up and tortured him half to death, and that stain there is where Zacharias Smith lay in a pool of blood, and there I watched Anthony Goldstein die_-), and he almost (_almost_**almost**_almost_) manages it.

"Sometimes," she tells him, "I do stupid things."

He comes across her, on a cold night in May (not that cold night; it's been a year, more than, but still-) on the top of the Astronomy tower, leaning over the edge and_god_ she looks so perfectly, heartbreakingly beautiful that he thinks: oh, dammit all.

"I can be impulsive," she continues, and he is only half listening, admiring the way her black plait snakes down her back and how, though he's known her since they were both eleven, taken classes together, fought together, she's never been so alive to him. He feels a sudden sharp pang of fear as she leans further out; he can see her centre of gravity tipping and he steps forward.

"Oh, I'm not going to throw myself off, Ernie," she says, and smiles (brighter than the moonlight). "I'm just saying; I could. If I wanted to."

"No, Susan," he says, "you couldn't."

Susan Bones turns on her precarious perch and looks at him, gaze defiant. "And why not?"

"Because I'd always catch you," he answers, and dammit all, he's fallen and it's so worth it.

~~x~~

_**A/N: Reviews are love :)**_


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